14th March is a particular day in the year which the Maths Department always look forward to. Why we here you ask? Well, written in American form, 14th March is 3/14. 3.14 is the start of Pi. Pi represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It’s an important part of Maths, most importantly geometry, where pi is key in calculating the area or circumference of a circle or the volume of a cylinder.
The Maths department once again had lots going on – here’s a run-down of the classes:
Miss Theobald’s classes:
10L1 had the opportunity to complete some Maths dingbats, sing along to the Pi Song and work out the amount of crust you would get on and eighth of a slice of the world’s largest deliverable pizza (56 inches in diameter).
11L1 tried to recite Pi to as many decimal places as possible – the winner being Emil who managed 28 decimal places. They also sang along to the Pi song.
7G were set an investigation to see how many pieces a pizza could be cut into by make 1 cut, then 2 cuts, then 3 cuts and so on. They spotted patterns, made predictions and tested these predictions. They also saw that writing your birthday in figures such as 14/03/18 – these digits can be found somewhere in pi (this happens to appear at digit 1 360 444!!)
Dr Gollop’s classes:
10R2/10L4 completed some Maths dingbats.
7A/7N – Investigated what Pi is by measuring around the circumference of different circular items and diameter. If done accurately, dividing the circumference by the diameter should give Pi.
8L1 – investigated the formula for the circumference of a circle with paper, next lesson they will be looking at area of circles and fractions of circles.
Mr Carter’s classes:
8L2/8R2 looked at how to find the area of a circle in terms of Pi and also with a calculator. They will later be investigating the circumference of a circle.
Mrs Mangler’s classes:
8R1 investigated the circumference and diameter of circles by measuring circular objects, they linked this to rearranging equations to get C = . Finally they worked out areas of circular objects after measuring them. Jimmy also managed to recite Pi to 26 decimal places!
9R2/10R5/7L all completed the Pi Day starters.
Mrs Smith’s classes:
10R1 completed the Pi Day starters and saw how many digits they could recite Pi to.
8R3 made some fantastic and colourful Pi paper chains where each digit in pi was represented by a different colour paper. They worked in small groups and tried to complete as many digits (chains) as possible!
